short statement for financial aid

Hello there,

Just got an email from the secretary saying that we have additional financial aid which we could apply for. It just requests for a one-page statement.

I post my draft here. Could you please help me read it and offer some suggestions? Thanks a lot.
Statement for scholarship

The beauty of diversity among languages and cultures always surprises me and arouses my curiosity for learning a new language and talking with people from different cultural background. It is the beauty that drives me all the way from an eastern province of China to Washington City, the center of the world.

I started my first semester at AU as an international student facing culture gap and trying to adapt to a totally new learning environment. Throughout the semester, I have overcome all the difficulties and maintained a good academic standing. It's my honor to know Professor Stack, Professor Kumar, Professor Weissman and Professor Erba and learn a great deal of communication knowledge from them. I worked very hard to improve my English communicating skills. And I even got my writing work published in The Washington Post, which fewer students have achieved in my class, let alone international students.

I always believe that communication study is way much more than what we are learning in class. It's about the language, the people and the culture. I am trying my best to know a real American society with every access I could get, subscribing the daily newspaper, doing volunteer work for NGO DC Central Kitchen, and attending fairs and conferences held in DC. The reason why I am writing this letter to apply for the financial help is that I want to add more accesses in my life, to better achieve my goal that acquiring a deep understanding of American culture and society.

Well, if the objective of writing this is to obtain financial aid, you should give more focus to that aspect. It is only mentioned at the end and there is no such strong reason as to convince them why you need financial aid from them. I have no idea about the context of this particular program, but I feel you do not adequately convince them that you should get their financial aid for your studies.